ling?" He answered in
simplicity: "Because no one can take my God from me." He died in the
seventh century. See his life and the history of his miracles in F.
Chifflet, and Mabillon, Acta Bened. t. 2, p. 103, both written by a monk
of Lure in the tenth century, as the authors of l'Hist. Lit. de la
France take notice, t. 6, p. 410. By moderns, this saint is called
Deicola; but in ancient MSS. Deicolus. In Franche-comte his name Deel is
frequently given in baptism, and Deele to persons of the female sex.

Footnotes:
1. The abbot of Lure was formerly a prince of the empire. At present the
abbey is united to that of Morbac in Alsace. Lure is situated three
leagues from Laxeu, which stands near mount Vosge, two leagues from
Lorraine towards the south.

ST. ULFRID, OR WOLFRED, BISHOP AND MARTYR.

HE was an Englishman of great learning and virtue; and preached the
faith, first in Germany; afterwards in Sweden, under the pious king Olas
II., who first took the title of king of Sweden; for his predecessors
had only been styled kings of Upsal. The good bishop converted many to
Christ; till in the year 1028, while he was preaching against the idol
Tarstans or Thor, and hewing it down with a hatchet, he was slain by the
pagans. See Adam of Bremen, who wrote his most faithful History of the
Church in the North, in 1080, l. 2 c. 44. Albert Kranxius, l. 4. Metrop.
c. 8. Baron. ad an. 1028, n. 10.

{178}

JANUARY XIX.

SS. MARIS, MARTHA, AUDIFAX, AND ABACHUM MM.

Abridged from their acts, concerning which see Bollandus, who allows
them, Tillem. t. 4, p. 673; and Chatelain, notes, p. 339.

A.D. 270.

MARIS, a nobleman of Persia, with his wife Martha, and two sons, Audifax
and Abachum, being converted to the faith, distributed his fortune among
the poor, as the primitive Christians did at Jerusalem, and came to Rome
to visit the tombs of the apostles. The emperor Aurelian then persecuted
the church, and by his order a great number of Christians were shut up
in the amphitheatre, and shot to death with arrows, and their bodies
burnt. Our saints gathered and buried their ashes with respect; for
which they were apprehended, and after many torments under the governor
Marcianus, Maris and his two sons were beheaded; and Martha drowned,
thirteen miles from Rome, at a place now called Santa Ninfa.[1] Their
relics were found at Rome in 1590. They are mentioned with distinction
in all the western Martyrologies from the sacramentary o